Just at this time Judas Iscariot took the first definite step
towards the Betrayal. He visited the chief priest Annas secretly.
He was very roughly received, but that did not disturb him in the
least, and he demanded a long private interview. When he found
himself alone with the dry, harsh old man, who looked at him with
contempt from beneath his heavy overhanging eyelids, he stated that
he was an honourable man who had become one of the disciples of Jesus
of Nazareth with the sole purpose of exposing the impostor, and
handing Him over to the arm of the law.

"But who is this Nazarene?" asked Annas contemptuously, making as
though he heard the name of Jesus for the first time.

Judas on his part pretended to believe in the extraordinary
ignorance of the chief priest, and spoke in detail of the preaching
of Jesus, of His miracles, of His hatred for the Pharisees and the
Temple, of His perpetual infringement of the Law, and eventually of
His wish to wrest the power out of the hands of the priesthood, and
to set up His own personal kingdom. And so cleverly did he mingle
truth with lies, that Annas looked at him more attentively, and
lazily remarked: "There are plenty of impostors and madmen in Judah."

"No! He is a dangerous person," Judas hotly contradicted. "He
breaks the law. And it were better that one man should perish,
rather than the whole people."

"But surely it is not the bad who flee from the good; is it not
rather the good who flee from the bad? Ha! ha! They are good, and
therefore they flee. They are good, and therefore they hide
themselves. They are good, and therefore they will appear only in
time to bury Jesus. They will lay Him in the tomb themselves; you
have only to execute Him."

"People always love their teacher, but better dead than alive.
While a teacher's alive he may ask them questions which they will
find difficult to answer. But, when a teacher dies, they become
teachers themselves, and then others fare badly in turn. Ha! ha!"

Annas looked piercingly at the Traitor, and his lips puckered--which
indicated that he was smiling.

"Can one hide anything from the perspicacity of the astute Annas?
You have pierced to the very heart of Judas. Yes, they insulted poor
Judas. They said he had stolen from them three denarii--as though
Judas were not the most honest man in Israel!"

They talked for some time longer about Jesus, and His disciples, and
of His pernicious influence on the people of Israel, but on this
occasion the crafty, cautious Annas gave no decisive answer. He had
long had his eyes on Jesus, and in secret conclave with his own
relatives and friends, with the authorities, and the Sadducees, had
decided the fate of the Prophet of Galilee. But he did not trust
Judas, who he had heard was a bad, untruthful man, and he had no
confidence in his flippant faith in the cowardice of the disciples,
and of the people. Annas believed in his own power, but he feared
bloodshed, feared a serious riot, such as the insubordinate,
irascible people of Jerusalem lent itself to so easily; he feared, in
fact, the violent intervention of the Roman authorities. Fanned by
opposition, fertilised by the red blood of the people, which vivifies
everything on which it falls, the heresy would grow stronger, and
stifle in its folds Annas, the government, and all his friends. So,
when Iscariot knocked at his door a second time Annas was perturbed
in spirit and would not admit him. But yet a third and a fourth time
Iscariot came to him, persistent as the wind, which beats day and
night against the closed door and blows in through its crevices.

"I see that the most astute Annas is afraid of something," said
Judas when at last he obtained admission to the high priest.

But yet again and again Judas called on the aged Annas, and at last
was admitted.

Dry and malicious, worried with thought, and silent, he gazed on the
Traitor, and, as it were, counted the hairs on his knotted head.
Judas also said nothing, and seemed in his turn to be counting the
somewhat sparse grey hairs in the beard of the high priest.

"What? you here again?" the irritated Annas haughtily jerked out, as
though spitting upon his head.

Both held their peace, and continued to gaze attentively at each
other. Iscariot's look was calm; but a quiet malice, dry and cold,
began slightly to prick Annas, like the early morning rime of winter.

Annas, with evident enjoyment, insultingly replied: "You are
nothing but a band of scoundrels. Thirty pieces--that's what we will
give."

And he quietly rejoiced to see how Judas began to squirm and run
about--agile and swift as though he had a whole dozen feet, not two.

"Thirty pieces of silver for Jesus!" he cried in a voice of wild
madness, most pleasing to Annas. "For Jesus of Nazareth! You wish
to buy Jesus for thirty pieces of silver? And you think that Jesus
can be betrayed to you for thirty pieces of silver?" Judas turned
quickly to the wall, and laughed in its smooth, white fence, lifting
up his long hands. "Do you hear? Thirty pieces of silver! For
Jesus!"

"If you will not deal, go away. We shall find some one whose work
is cheaper."

And like old-clothes men who throw useless rags from hand to hand in
the dirty market-place, and shout, and swear and abuse each other, so
they embarked on a rabid and fiery bargaining. Intoxicated with a
strange rapture, running and turning about, and shouting, Judas
ticked off on his fingers the merits of Him whom he was selling.

"And the fact that He is kind and heals the sick, is that worth
nothing at all in your opinion? Ah, yes! Tell me, like an honest
man!"

"If you--" began Annas, who was turning red, as he tried to get in a
word, his cold malice quickly warming up under the burning words of
Judas, who, however, interrupted him shamelessly:

"That He is young and handsome--like the Narcissus of Sharon, and
the Lily of the Valley? What? Is that worth nothing? Perhaps you
will say that He is old and useless, and that Judas is trying to
dispose of an old bird? Eh?"

"If you--" Annas tried to exclaim; but Judas' stormy speech bore
away his senile croak, like down upon the wind.

"Thirty pieces of silver! That will hardly work out to one obolus
for each drop of blood! Half an obolus will not go to a tear! A
quarter to a groan. And cries, and convulsions! And for the ceasing
of His heartbeats? And the closing of His eyes? Is all this to be
thrown in gratis?" sobbed Iscariot, advancing toward the high priest
and enveloping him with an insane movement of his hands and fingers,
and with intervolved words.

"And how much will you make out of it yourself? Eh? You wish to
rob Judas, to snatch the bit of bread from his children. No, I can't
do it. I will go on to the market-place, and shout out: 'Annas has
robbed poor Judas. Help!'"

Wearied, and grown quite dizzy, Annas wildly stamped about the floor
in his soft slippers, gesticulating: "Be off, be off!"

But Judas on a sudden bowed down, stretching forth his hands
submissively:

"But if you really.... But why be angry with poor Judas, who only
desires his children's good. You also have children, young and
handsome."

"But I--I did not say that I was unwilling to make a reduction. Did
I ever say that I could not too yield? And do I not believe you,
that possibly another may come and sell Jesus to you for fifteen
oboli--nay, for two--for one?"

And bowing lower and lower, wriggling and flattering, Judas submissively
consented to the sum offered to him. Annas shamefacedly, with dry,
trembling hand, paid him the money, and silently looking round, as
though scorched, lifted his head again and again towards the ceiling,
and moving his lips rapidly, waited while Judas tested with his teeth
all the silver pieces, one after another.

"This money was devoted to the Temple by the pious," said Annas,
glancing round quickly, and still more quickly turning the ruddy bald
nape of his neck to Judas' view.

"But can pious people distinguish between good and bad money! Only
rascals can do that."

Judas did not take the money home, but went beyond the city and hid
it under a stone. Then he came back again quietly with heavy,
dragging steps, as a wounded animal creeps slowly to its lair after a
severe and deadly fight. Only Judas had no lair; but there was a
house, and in the house he perceived Jesus. Weary and thin,
exhausted with continual strife with the Pharisees, who surrounded
Him every day in the Temple with a wall of white, shining, scholarly
foreheads, He was sitting, leaning His cheek against the rough wall,
apparently fast asleep. Through the open window drifted the restless
noises of the city. On the other side of the wall Peter was
hammering, as he put together a new table for the meal, humming the
while a quiet Galilean song. But He heard nothing; he slept on
peacefully and soundly. And this was He, whom they had bought for
thirty pieces of silver.

Coming forward noiselessly, Judas, with the tender touch of a
mother, who fears to wake her sick child--with the wonderment of a
wild beast as it creeps from its lair suddenly, charmed by the sight
of a white flowerlet--he gently touched His soft locks, and then
quickly withdrew his hand. Once more he touched Him, and then
silently crept out.

And going apart, he wept long, shrinking and wriggling and
scratching his bosom with his nails and gnawing his shoulders. Then
suddenly he ceased weeping and gnawing and gnashing his teeth, and
fell into a sombre reverie, inclining his tear-stained face to one
side in the attitude of one listening. And so he remained for a long
time, doleful, determined, from every one apart, like fate itself.

. . . . . . . .

Judas surrounded the unhappy Jesus, during those last days of His
short life, with quiet love and tender care and caresses. Bashful
and timid like a maid in her first love, strangely sensitive and
discerning, he divined the minutest unspoken wishes of Jesus,
penetrating to the hidden depth of His feelings, His passing fits of
sorrow, and distressing moments of weariness. And wherever Jesus
stepped, His foot met something soft, and whenever He turned His
gaze, it encountered something pleasing. Formerly Judas had not
liked Mary Magdalene and the other women who were near Jesus. He had
made rude jests at their expense, and done them little unkindnesses.
But now he became their friend, their strange, awkward ally. With
deep interest he would talk with them of the charming little
idiosyncrasies of Jesus, and persistently asking the same questions,
he would thrust money into their hands, their very palms--and they
brought a box of very precious ointment, which Jesus liked so much,
and anointed His feet. He himself bought for Jesus, after desperate
bargaining, an expensive wine, and then was very angry when Peter
drank nearly all of it up, with the indifference of a person who
looks only to quantity; and in that rocky Jerusalem almost devoid of
trees, flowers, and greenery he somehow managed to obtain young
spring flowers and green grass, and through these same women to give
them to Jesus.

For the first time in his life he would take up little children in
his arms, finding them somewhere about the courts and streets, and
unwillingly kiss them to prevent their crying; and often it would
happen that some swarthy urchin with curly hair and dirty little
nose, would climb up on the knees of the pensive Jesus, and
imperiously demand to be petted. And while they enjoyed themselves
together, Judas would walk up and down at one side like a severe
jailor, who had himself, in springtime, let a butterfly in to a
prisoner, and pretends to grumble at the breach of discipline.

On an evening, when together with the darkness, alarm took post as
sentry by the window, Iscariot would cleverly turn the conversation
to Galilee, strange to himself but dear to Jesus, with its still
waters and green banks. And he would jog the heavy Peter till his
dulled memory awoke, and in clear pictures in which everything was
loud, distinct, full of colour, and solid, there arose before his
eyes and ears the dear Galilean life. With eager attention, with
half-open mouth in child-like fashion, and with eyes laughing in
anticipation, Jesus would listen to his gusty, resonant, cheerful
utterance, and sometimes laughed so at his jokes, that it was
necessary to interrupt the story for some minutes. But John told
tales even better than Peter. There was nothing ludicrous, nor
startling, about his stories, but everything seemed so pensive,
unusual, and beautiful, that tears would appear in Jesus' eyes,
and He would sigh softly, while Judas nudged Mary Magdalene and
excitedly whispered to her--

Then they would all quietly disperse to bed, and Jesus would kiss
His thanks to John, and stroke kindly the shoulder of the tall Peter.

And without envy, but with a condescending contempt, Judas would witness
these caresses. Of what importance were these tales and kisses and sighs
compared with what he, Judas Iscariot, the red-haired, misshapen Judas,
begotten among the rocks, could tell them if he chose?